Saturated
Fat

Saturated fat is fat that consists of triglycerides
containing only saturated fatty acids. Saturated fatty acids have no
double bonds between the carbon atoms of the fatty acid chain (hence,
they are fully saturated with hydrogen atoms). There are several kinds
of naturally occurring saturated fatty acids, with their only difference
being the number of carbon atoms - from 1 to 24. Some common examples
of saturated fatty acids are butyric acid with 4 carbon atoms, (contained
in butter), lauric acid with 12 carbon atoms (contained in mother's
milk, coconut oil, palm oil, and cocoa butter), myristic acid with 14
carbon atoms (contained in cow milk and dairy products), palmitic acid
with 16 carbon atoms (contained in meat), stearic acid with 18 carbon
atoms (also contained in meat).

Fat that occurs naturally in living matter such as animals and plants
and that is used as food for human consumption contains a varying proportion
of saturated and unsaturated fat. Foods that contain a high proportion
of saturated fat are butter, ghee, suet, tallow, lard, coconut oil,
cottonseed oil and palm oil, dairy products (especially cream and cheese),
meat as well as some prepared foods. Other foods such as olive oil contain
a high proportion of monounsaturated fat, while others such as sunflower
oil and corn oil contain mainly polyunsaturated fat.

Health issues

Diets high in saturated fat correlate in some studies with an increased
incidence of atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease. Some studies
suggest replacing saturated fats in the diet with unsaturated fats will
increase one's ratio of HDL to LDL serum cholesterol.

Controversy

It has been alleged that the many studies of saturated fat in the diet
do not distinguish between saturated fat and trans fat. Some claim that
saturated fat (in the absence of trans fat) is healthful; for example,
foods such as peanuts and pure peanut butter (peanut butter having no
added partially hydrogenated vegetable oil) contain saturated fat but
no trans fat. Such foods may be beneficial or may be a health hazard;
no research specific to this question has as yet been done.

Also, it has been pointed out that meat and dairy foods contain some
naturally-occurring trans fatty acids. It is unknown whether or not
they cause heart disease. Some researchers claim that there are "good"
trans fatty acids, such as conjugated linoleic acid.